Elder Thomas Wood's Mission to Jamaica Kingston Mission

Sunday, October 15, 2017

This week has been crazy, I have traveled from Kingston to
many different places this week including downtown, Mandeville, hopeton,
Junction, and Port Antonio. The main reason being is to find houses for the
missionaries so they can better focus on the work. I also got to proselyte in
just about all of those areas this week.

Zone Conference was this week and it was awesome. I learned
that many small and simple things bring about the accomplishment of bigger
things. Like obedience to a small rule can bring about a great blessing not
because your doing just the small thing, but it helps you better obey the
bigger things as well.

Well, I gotta get going, I will talk to you all later.

Sincerely,

---Elder Wood

A few pictures of the past week,

First one is me looking towards the Son :) along the
coastline of Kingston earlier today.

The second is me helping someone on the other end of the
phone and walking down a trail in the dark to go visit an investigator.

So these weeks have been crazy last week there were 17 new
missionaries that came in, as well as 6 out of 8 missionaries came to Jamaica
from Bahamas and Turks. It was crazy. We have them all housed and where they
need to be.

As we have spent less time in our area (due to helping all
these missionaries) I have learned to be more grateful for the time that we
have been called to serve out here. It really is a special opportunity to focus
all of our efforts to the Lord's work. I am grateful for all of you and also
everyone that I have been able to meet out here.

Sincerely,

---Elder Wood---

Morning everyone,

The first is a picture of me trying to revive the internet
at the office after the building was struck be lightning.

The second is the May Pen market that we visited last week.

The third and final picture is our APs (Assistants to the
President) hard at work.

I don't have time to write too much right now, my
companionship as well as the other office elders traveled to May Pen to bring
some elders some supplies as well as shop in the town market.

We have a lesson with some awesome people tonight; Denzel
who is a networker for one of the local banks, the Reynolds who know just about
everybody in Jamaica, and Andy and his family who is a spiritual giant.

I am not gonna send out an email until Monday due to
time constraints but I do hope that the fires die down. Maybe you need a
hurricane where the fire is to help put it out, Irma passed by us and all we
got was a little rain, but Turks and Caicos where we had some missionaries was
estimated to be 6 feet underwater when the hurricane came. No missionaries were
harmed, infact those missionaries stayed with us in our house for a few nights
before being reassigned to May Pen.

I was able to prepare phones for the new missionaries, but I
haven't gotten enough spares to give to the off-islanders while they are here.
Its an adventure for them because four elders are sharing one phone.

In this coming week there will be 17 new missionaries in our
mission. We have 85 missionaries right now, so between the ones leaving this
week and the 17 coming in, there are gonna be a lot of changes. I realized this
week that they all need phones so I am working on getting phones for all the
new companionship's, but that's just logistics.

We have been finding and teaching those that God has allowed
us to find as he has been preparing them. We are meeting with this large family
yard where many of them are members but stopped coming a long time ago, and
many others have never been members. We also met some families that have always
wondered what missionaries are about. Its been a wonderful experience with all
of them. We feel that some are very close to baptism and the rest will be on
their way shortly.

I wish you all the best and I will talk to you next week,

---Elder Wood---

First is my companion thinks he is swaggin with those
glasses, Elder Kirby found them and gave them to Elder Menlove.

Second is is dropping of our District Leader. Elder Epps,
and one of our zone leaders, Elder Callister, in downtown Kingston.

Third is Brother Pryce who joined us for lunch when we ate
out. He does office work for the chapels and such for the church on the island.

I am indeed writing on a Monday, we moved our preparation
again for zone preparation day. I should be writing you all on Saturday again
at the end of this week. I am continuously getting surprised with things both
inside the office and out in the field. I am learning to handle the surprises
better.

A funny story from this past week was when I was driving in
town and stopped at the stoplight and I realized that the eclipse was taking
place. I stuck my head out the window and looked at it, not the best idea, but
I did get a glimpse of it.

We have met some wonderful people this past week. We are
working on preparing them to enter the waters of baptism, I will update y'all
more on Saturday.

This week has been crazy, we decided on Wednesday to
shutdown a house in Linstead. It was crazy to clean that house. My companion
also helped some sister move out of their house and into another one on
Thursday, meanwhile I was making trips to Courts for furnishings and to Yallahs
to pick up and drop off an elder that needed his eyes checked.

I am also learning the importance of a statement made by the
apostle Elder Hales

“When you cannot do what you have always done, then you only do
what matters most.”

I
am beginning to understand that quote a lot better. I know that what matters
most is living and then sharing the gospel. It will provide those who live it
with joy throughout the eternities.

I
wish y'all the best,

---Elder
Wood---

I realized that I didn't take any pictures since Monday so I
decided to take some pictures of the office of chaos. Everything is suppose to
have a place...guess I must have been dreaming when I saw my desk clean a few
days ago :P I will include more in the coming emails about whats going on.

You might be wondering why I am emailing on Monday. We had
an amazing zone conference with Elder Alonso. I was also able to setup the
audio for this as well as connecting in the off-Island missionaries. That was
an amazing experience. We are also trying to close the mission office by 4
o'clock everyday in order to better go out and proselyte. It is a different
work load but it allows us to better fulfill our responsibility as
missionaries.

(At the time that I am writing this, my office is being
pillaged because I have the storage room attached to mine and it is preparation
day.)

I continue to study and increase my spiritual strength and
power, I hope and wish that you all do the same.

Talk to you Saturday,

---Elder Wood---

Greetings,

So this week was adventurous. First picture is of a sound
board that we used for zone conference.

I will explain more about that in the upcoming email.

As for the next two, the other office elders, the ones who
run all over the island for me, got ahold of my computer and left a few extra
pictures on it so here you go.

The last one is a picture of a fountain that we always pass
on the way to the office.